Take the Long Way Home
by thinktink2
Summary: It's been three years since the apocalypse was averted. Three years since Sam...went away. Three years since Dean muddled out a kind of peace he can finally live with, and he's not going back from that without a fight. Takes place long after Swan Song.
1. The Weight

**First supernatural fanfic. Ever. I'm a little out of practice with writing fanfic—it seems to go in spurts for me, but Swan Song jumpstarted the muses. All grammar errors are mine, as is Bree, and Dean Winchester. What? I'm not sharing…oh fine, Kripke…if you promise not to sue while I borrow him for a while, I promise to share…**

**Takes place three years after the finale. Spoilers abound.**

The lights flickered.

Dean raised an eyebrow, the third time it had noticeably blinked frantically in the dim confines of the garage. Ben took no notice of the phenomenon, engrossed in the mechanical wonders lying underneath the hood of the impala, fingers covered in dirt and grease. Ben tapped his wrench against the side of the engine mount bracket, face sweaty but happy in the flickering light and Dean allowed a small smile of his own to surface at the expression.

It had been a long time, years in fact, since Dean felt this close to…peace, he guessed he could call it. He still wasn't sure if that was what it really was, but he felt…settled in this life now, he supposed. Resigned, a thought flickered in time with the lights, but he pushed it out of his mind.

There was nothing wrong with this. This was how life was supposed to be, right. A boy and his surrogate Dad, working together on a car, passing down skills and knowledge from one generation to the next. He had to say that Ben picked up the inner workings of automobiles far more handily than Sam ever had. He took a swig of his beer, his mind skittering away from that thought.

Sam.

Three years and nothing.

Three years and slowly, reluctantly, he had moved forward with his life. A life without Sam. He swallowed another bitter mouthful of beer, nodding absently at something Ben was saying, thoughts of Sam and his life without him drowning out the noise.

Three years since he said goodbye, more like the world's biggest fuck you, really, to the only life he had ever known, hunting. He had quit that life cold turkey, never looked back, but what was there to look back for? Nothing remained, nothing of value, anyway, from that life, everything that had ever mattered to him stripped away forcibly, no matter how hard, how determined he had been to hang on to it. All he had left was a promise. A bitter, reluctant promise, and it took everything he had to honor it.

He had crashed landed into Lisa's and Ben's life broken; a man devoid of purpose, of being, of any enjoyment he may have once felt in life. He was just numb, or at least drinking his way steadily towards that goal, past numb, to death, to Sammy, because really, what did it matter then whether he lived or died?

He raised his eyes when he heard the door creak, his back stiffening, instincts attuned to his environment even though they've mostly laid dormant these last three years. He can't shut them off, not sure if he wants to. Knows that his ability to assess and react to a situation could mean the difference between life and death, not only for him, but for his family, but wishes he was just a little less aware of that going on around him.

He's mostly ignored all the signs that still say a demon war is still going on around him, but it feels like the last gasps of a long awaited death throe, a denouement that has been so drawn out the big climax is almost meaningless, forgotten.

He hasn't forgotten and that is never more evident that when he surges awake, gasping, dreams vivid and unyielding…_Sam…Cas…Bobby…Lucifer, the apocalypse, the promise…the goddamn promise to do nothing but live some perfect life so far removed from everything he knows he can't help wondering if it's another game of the trickster's, like the time they were trapped in TV land, where he doesn't know the rules and is just learning the concept of the game. _The meaning, though, the lesson, that's still lost on him.

He allows Lisa's quiet gentle comfort to sooth him now, after those dreams, slender fingers sliding through his hair, allows her to hold him without fear of having to explain himself. He can't put words to it, though he has tried on occasion to lessen the gap of understanding between them, but he's relieved when Lisa accepts that there's a part of him she may never know or understand, may not _want_ to understand or know, he thinks, remembering her disconcertedness when he explained his job after saving Ben, the frenzied, disjointed reason for coming to her when he almost said yes to Michael, but she seems to accept him nonetheless, and for that he is grateful. He just doesn't feel he can part with one more piece of him, not even to her, and he's fairly sure he may love her.

Has to, he thinks, watching her step carefully around the mess on the cement floor, tools, and rags, peering intently at the pile of garbage stacked along the edge of workbench, and Dean is reminded he promised he would set that out tonight on the curb after dinner, an event that had occurred some time ago. She's carrying the reason for his rebirth of being on her hip, although sometimes he can't help but crudely think of it as the afterbirth of his being.

The baby snuggled up against her side is as good a reason as any for getting up in the morning, when he doesn't let himself think of how much she reminds him of Sam, of what Sam is missing out on, unable to be the dorky uncle to his infant niece.

His daughter catches sight of him and grins widely, two newly acquired teeth on her bottom gum peeking out of her small pink mouth. Arms stretch forward in silent but insistent command and he sets his beer down and acquiesces, plucking her from her mother's embrace and planting a small kiss against her flushed cheek.

Lisa brushes her hand down his arm as she walks past, elicits a loud, delighted laugh when she tickles their daughter and moves to peer over Ben's hunched over form as he works his wrench around a stubborn bolt.

"How's it going out here?" she asks, and looks at Dean for the answer when Ben just grunts. Breanna fists a saliva covered hand in Dean's shirt and swivels her head, brunette ends curling around her ears, much like Sam's did he thinks unbidden, to watch her brother work with wide green eyes.

"The hardest part is getting the bolts off, right now," Dean replies, and Ben punctuates this point when his wrench slips and he scrapes a couple of layers of dermis off his hand. "Son of a bitch!" he grouses, wincing when he feels a light smack of admonishment from her mother.

"Watch your mouth, buster." Ben glances at his enraptured sibling and grins back at his mom innocently. Surprisingly Ben took to the unexpected addition of a sister far more smoothly then he did a surrogate father. The idolized vision he had conjured of Dean failed to live up to the horribly disappointing reality, and he and Dean had circled each other warily once the bubble burst a few months in to Dean's tenure as family man. Most of the uncertainty lied with Dean's effect on his mom, how the drama surrounding him affected his family. Ben was nothing if not Lisa's son though, and he found grudging acceptance of Dean when Dean knew himself he did not deserve it.

Ben had just turned fourteen, awash in school and sports, puberty and angst, the ensuing hormones, and struggle for independence. He was somewhat past the needing of a father figure in his life, Dean's appearance in their family having hit on just the tail end of that, but they both found a groove they could live with, sharing in sports, cars, music, and those things an adolescent boy just couldn't talk to his mom about. He adored his little half-sister, basked in her affection and unmitigated wonder, and Dean had no doubt that the bond between them was no less than the one he had felt with Sammy.

Breanna Winchester's existence was purely accidental, though, the consequence of a moment of weakness, when Dean and Lisa had been blurring the lines between friends and lovers, a yo-yo-ing situation that seemed to define most of their early relationship, that is what came before his daughter. They had pretty much crossed well over that line now, given up the ghost of pretending they could remain uncomplicated while Dean tried to sort himself out and his feelings for her and Ben. Initially the line separating them from roommates to couple had been quite defined, but cracks in resolve kept smearing it. Gentle soothing one night from Lisa after a nightmarish memory gave way to frenzied lovemaking, Dean trying to do what he always did when he was overwhelmed and frightened: seek solace in a willing woman's arms. Lisa's own sexual frustration giving way as she sought to remedy the weeks and months of mounting tension between them, and by God nothing had changed with this woman's ability (and flexibility) to astound and make him forget. She managed to reawaken Dean's long dormant libido and as the months passed with them together in tight quarters, convenience and lust started overruling caution and reason.

And wasn't that a good reason to make a baby?

But Dean couldn't change the fact that that's what had happened, didn't want to. The news of Lisa's pregnancy served to ignite a sense of purpose in him that he had long thought had died, never to resurface. He was determined to be a good father to his child, protect her, Lisa and Ben-his family, he suddenly realized-give them the life he had been denied even before he had reached kindergarten. John Winchester he was not, had never been, as much as he had once idolized him, and he vowed his family, his children, would come before anything in the world, supernatural or otherwise, and this, he swore, this he would keep. Ben might know, and Lisa might have more insight than the average person, but Breanna would never know, never experience the horrors he had as a child, never know the terror and helplessness, confusion and anger.

He was done with hunting. And he'd be damned if he'd ever risk his family ever again to partake in anything relating to the supernatural again.

As if in response, the lights flickered and popped, winked out and came on with an electric hiss, prompting even Ben to divert his attention away from the Impala's engine momentarily in annoyance, before sighing in relief when the electricity stayed on.

Lisa glanced nervously at Dean, eyes skimming over his to their daughter, safely ensconced in her father's arms.

"That was a little weird," she murmured, and Dean tightened his grip around Bree even as he shrugged nonchalantly.

"I've seen weirder, believe me," he replied. "Just a storm coming in, that's all." _Demonic omens?_ His mind offered and Dean shook his head in response. He was long past looking at everything with deeper meaning, and a summer storm didn't necessary herald something sinister.

Bree's birth seemed to have reawakened his more paranoid tendencies as well, and where he had shirked anything remotely resembling demons, and angels, and omens and prophecies, he found he couldn't ignore them any longer if he was serious about keeping his family protected. Knowledge was power, right? Isn't that always what Sam had said?

Knowledge was damn near hell. Whoever said "ignorance is bliss" obviously knew that staying up late at night analyzing every little scrap or factoid that might remotely point to the supernatural, evil that could strike at his family, was the road to insanity.

What he wouldn't give to be stupid.

Lisa and Bree stayed out there with them for another twenty minutes or so, chatting about the car, a couple of the girls Lisa worked with, and Bree's newest word, having already mastered "mama" "dada" "Bee" (Ben), and a handful of others, until Bree started getting fussy, a sure sign that her bedtime was imminent. He gave one last kiss to his daughter, growling, and felt her cheek widen in response and a high pitched giggle slipped out, before handing her back to her mother. Laughing eyes met his over Lisa's shoulder and Dean felt the at once terrifying and gratifying low pitch of love and dedication gurgle in his gut at the expression.

Dean and Ben worked on the car for another hour before calling it quits. Dean spent a few minutes organizing the workbench, straightening the tools and the mess, fiddling really, finding something to occupy his hands with now that he no longer spent nights cleaning and organizing his weapons cache, hadn't now for many months.

The last time had been shortly before Bree's six month birthday and he couldn't explain to Lisa why he had to stay awake, stay alert, armed and ready in their daughter's bedroom. He knew it was one of the few times when she had almost demanded an explanation for his crazy behavior, but the morning came and went, as did the next day, and the next, without incident and both breathed a sigh of relief when Dean relaxed and put the guns away.

Neither ever spoke of that night.

He kept busy, stretching a five minute exercise into fifteen, until he couldn't prolong the activity any longer. He sighed and grabbed the two bags of trash still nestled against the work area, and walked them out to the curb, dumping them unceremoniously at the curb. The streetlight above him flickered and popped, attracting his attention and he felt his body tighten in response. It popped two more times before showering him with sparks, Dean ducking instinctively to protect himself. When he straightened he realized that all the streetlights in the neighborhood were out.

_Soooo_ not good.

And he didn't have a weapon on him.

Great, he got his wish. He was stupid.

His eyes took a precious amount of time to adjust to the black, and he realized with a start a lone figure stood approximately ten feet before him, outline barely visible in the dim light that remained of the night.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Feedback is required. Particularly if you want the to keep the muses humming.


	2. That was Yesterday

The form he could now vaguely make out in the inky blackness made him blink in surprise, his mind allowing a moment for him to consider the very real possibility that his at times tenuous hold on sanity had finally bid him adieu.

"Hello, Dean."

"Cas!" he barked, only then relaxing the fighting stance he had assumed. "That really you?" he added disbelievingly.

He detected the subtle nod in answer, heard the rustle of fabric rubbing together as Castiel moved towards him.

"You scared the shit out of me," Dean finished, and finally he could make out the pronounced features of Cas' vessel.

"I am sorry if I startled you."

"What did you expect would happen, jumping people in the dark?" But his breathing and heart rate were already slowing.

"My apologies," Cas replied, eyes narrowed in contemplation of the human before him. Dean shifted, toeing the edge of one of the garbage bags back further onto the solid wall of the curbing, where it had protruded into the street, no real danger however of falling over.

"What!" he finally snapped. "Take a picture already!"

Cas' eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Why are you here Cas?"

"You look…well," Castiel observed, and he sounded surprised with the revelation.

"You look…exactly the same," Dean retorted, noting the trench coat and shirt and tie that had defined his vessel, and therefore Castiel, for the entire time Dean had known him. "Doesn't Jimmy get to change his clothes once you got out of him?"

Castiel looked down at the outfit in question and gave a small shrug. "You seem…good," he said instead.

"I'm alive," Dean retorted noncommittally, which was all he felt he could say about his health, mental and physical, at any given time, although the statement had lost some of its bite over the last year or so. "Why so surprised? Heaven not getting the newsletter on all things Dean Winchester?"

Cas' brow furrowed in confusion again. "I'm surviving," Dean clarified, barely suppressing a sigh. "A father now, can you believe it?" he added. "Lisa and I had a baby about a year ago, so, you know…" and Dean wasn't sure how to finish the statement. _Things are good?_ Were they? His brother was still trapped in hell; he had still lost everything that ever mattered to him.

"Not everything," Cas replied and Dean jolted with the invasion and realization that Cas could still hear his thoughts. Felt violated that he might not be able to keep up the charade he had worked so hard to convince himself of, that he was happy, that things were okay, that he had moved on. Yet another thing stripped from him by Heaven and Hell and this fucking clusterfuck that was his reality no matter how much he refused to see it.

He looked at Cas, gaze naked and bare as it had been all those years ago when he had realized he had lost Sam forever, and Dean could hardly choke back the sob of despair that overwhelmed him. He stepped back from Castiel, unable to withstand another second of the angel's omniscient stare, another step, half turning before he wrestled his emotions back under control. He kept his back half-turned though, focused his attention on the garbage bags on his front lawn.

"Not everything, Dean," and Dean looked up then, certain the angel was referring to something more oblique than the only family he had had left.

"And yet that's not true is it?" Cas continued. "The birth of Breanna Winchester was a cause for celebration among many of us in Heaven."

"Jesus, will you get out of my head! And you knew about Bree all along?"

"I do get the newsletter," Castiel added, and Dean swore he was almost smiling.

"Yeah, well, whatever. Thanks for that awesome baby gift you sent," Dean added sarcastically. "Lisa and I sure missed you at the shower, and the birth, and Bree's first birthday, and well, you know any time else in the last three years between."

"You're welcome," Cas replied solemnly.

Dean rolled his eyes, before he remembered Castiel's sudden reappearance in his life after three years might qualify as one of those supernatural incidents that heralded impending doom.

"Why are you here, Cas, now?"

"We need to talk. Alone."

_Shit._ Dean closed his eyes in grief. _It can't be happening again. It can't_.

Dean opened his eyes and realized he was no longer standing on the front lawn in front of his house.

He glanced around frantically before coming to rest his irritated gaze on Castiel, leaning against a window in what Dean could peripherally make out as someone's dilapidated living room.

"Did you just zap me somewhere?"

"I want to show you something," Cas said.

"You could have asked!"

"Take a look around. Notice anything unusual?"

Dean frowned in annoyance and grudgingly began cataloguing the area surrounding him.

The paint was peeling off the walls in a number of places, in fact one wall, the north facing one, if he had to guess, had what appeared to be mold or mildew growing on it. The carpet was so threadbare in some places that Dean could make out the worn wood subflooring beneath it. There was no furniture, save for a fugly couch in the corner, so low to the ground Dean would bet that the legs had been sawed, or broken, off of it, beside it a couple of worn books, probably bound and published before the turn of the twentieth century. Dean had no doubt the place was condemned, that the rest of the house looked no better. It reminded him of a couple of places Sam and he had squatted in, and his mind instantly skittered away from that thought.

"No," Dean spat. "Should I?"

Castiel sighed, and Dean got the impression that he thought of him as a very slow child.

Castiel pointed to the ceiling and Dean followed his arm to find a devil's trap painted above him.

"Oh," Dean uttered, surprised he had missed it, that his skills were so out of practice. _But they should be,_ he reminded himself, _you're no longer part of that life anymore._ "So?"

"Demons," Cas said, and that was all he was going to say apparently until Dean figured out what they were doing here.

"So," Dean snapped. "What else is new?"

Cas frowned, and Dean was reminded this time of his second grade art teacher.

"Don't you see?" Cas said, quirking that goddamned eyebrow again.

"No, Cas, I don't. I don't see what any of this has to do with me, or why we're here. Did you skip the part in the newsletter where it said I'm retired from hunting. I no longer care about anything supernatural. It's not my business anymore, Cas."

"I think that it is."

And for some reason that comment rankled.

"No, goddamn it, it's not! I'm done, Cas. Done. I've got a baby and my family to think of. A _promise _to keep," and Dean spat that word out like it was poison, "and I can't still be screwing around with this crap. There are plenty of other hunters in the world that can handle some demons."

"But there's only one Dean Winchester," Cas replied slowly, "and I need his help."

"Well, tough shit, Cas, because Dean Winchester, Demon Hunter Extraordinaire and Survivor of the Averted Apocalypse has hung up his rosary and flask of holy water. He's now the unwed father of two, assistant coach of Ben's little league team, and employee of the month at Doggett's Transmission and Auto."

"Dean—"

"I said forget it Cas, I'm done with hunting."

"Listen to me, Dean. There's something going on here—"

"Great, I hope you figure it out. Take me back."

"You really think you've given it all up? That you can ignore what's going on around you. I know you Dean," Castiel murmured.

"You don't know shit, Cas."

"No? I know your heart, Dean. I know your mind. I know what goes through your head when you look at your life, your baby, your family. I know what you think and feel when they've all gone to bed and you're alone in the dark thinking about what it all means."

"Don't…"

"What?"

"You can't admit to yourself that you have doubts? That this is all your life is meant to be?"

"Don't…I l-love Lisa," he whispered, "I love my daughter, and Ben…" he cut off abruptly, seized by a bone-seeping coldness invading his chest. "I can't risk…I can't…I can't." _I can't lose them, too. There all I have left. All I've been able to cobble together as a reason to go on, get up each morning._ _And I promised, him. I promised him._

And here Castiel nodded in understanding as though Dean had said the words outloud.

"I can't," Dean whispered.

"Bobby's been trying to reach you," Cas said after a long moment, watching Dean wrestle his emotions under control.

"I lost my phone."

And actually he couldn't recall what he had done with his cell phone once he reached Lisa's all those years ago. Everybody that would have ever had called him was dead or gone, and he had no desire to keep contact with any hunting acquaintances, Bobby included, wanted to stay the fuck out, although he recalled Lisa had once sent Bobby a Christmas invitation. Remembered because he and Lisa had gotten into a pretty nasty fight. Had maybe broken up, although that implied that they were together, and he was pretty sure they were still strictly moonlighting as roommates at that time, although he couldn't remember. He had still been drinking a lot then, another point of contention between them, and he might have had a few when he laid into Lisa about the invite.

Definitely had more than a few when Bobby hadn't showed up.

He knows it goes both ways though. Bobby hasn't tried to contact him, and he hasn't tried to contact Bobby. Not to pass on demon information, not to get together for drinks, not to even inform that he had started repopulating the earth with Winchesters.

He smirked slightly, imagining the expression on Bobby's face if he knew Dean was a father, had a little _girl_ of all things. Would have probably said he deserved it, could imagine the panic on the older hunter's face when Dean threatened to have him baby-sit. The smile faded quickly, and Dean looked up to Castiel quickly, swallowing the lump of emotion that kept threatening to overwhelm and choke him.

"Take me back, Cas. I have no business being here anymore. This is not my life anymore." He swallowed again, throat aching, and managed, "Tell Bobby…" he gasped painfully, "Tell Bobby I'm out…and to stay the hell away from me and my family."


End file.
